Noah has been back riding the horses at Red Arena for a couple months now. I’ve been blown away by his instructor, Miss Emily. She adores my little guy and although she is not a SLP, she has worked with him extensively on his speech and is getting great results.

A few weeks ago she told me about all these words he was saying and how he was putting phrases together on his own.

Seriously?

She said he had said words like throw, rock, water, snake.

Again, seriously?

I prompted him to say “water” right there in front of her, and Noah grunted as usual.

“No, no,” she said, “He really said it.”

“Okay, whatever you say,” I thought. (I didn’t say it outloud, did I?)

So last week at Noah’s session, Miss Emily produced a video. Proof. The little boy on the video is not the little boy I know. He was throwing rocks in the water and asking for more rocks, water, putting words together. It was like she said. He said “water,” he really did.

So I mentioned all this to Noah’s speech therapist and asked for his take on why Noah does so well in that environment, but I don’t get the same results.

“Well, Mrs. Dunn, you are Noah’s mother, Noah’s homeschool teacher, and his speech therapist. It’s probably too much. Take the speech therapy drilling out of his routine, and just work with him on his school work. Work on prompting speech from his lexicon during real-life opportunities, but leave the speech therapy to me.”

Seriously?

Okay. So I horribly misquoted the speech therapist, I’m sure, but that’s the gist I got.

So I fumed for a few days. Noah is darn tooting lucky to have a Mom who is willing to drill with him every day. Stop drilling?

But you know, as I thought about it, I think the speech therapist may have a point. Maybe. Or maybe I’m just tired and welcome a break.

But going on the notion that the speech therapist might have a point – Noah actually excels at drilling. He can make most of the consonant and vowel sounds in isolation. It’s words and phrases that he struggles with. I think I tend to wear him out in our speech sessions, so then when I try to prompt speech in real-life activities, he responds to it like its another speech session and resists. Perhaps it might be better for my wanna-be speech therapist persona to fade into the background and just stick with Momma.

You know, I think what really got me was the notion that somebody other than myself might hold the key to helping Noah find his voice. I mean, we don’t farm out our kids education, academic or religious, we don’t pay other people to take care of our kids; we feel like we’re wholly responsible to give our children what they need.

So this idea of “leaving speech therapy to the experts” just doesn’t fit.

But I think he might be right.

But I also think, in looking back, that Noah needs different things at different times. I think he needed traditional speech therapy when he got it at age 3-6. And I think he needed PROMPT once he turned 6. And I think he needed the drilling we did over the past year. But I think, perhaps, the speech therapist was right. Right now, he just needs his Mom.

So Mom is what he gets, even if Mom is going to still be capturing every teachable language moment she can, even if Mom is still going to be prompting for speech and teaching sign language, even if Mom is still going to be on the lookout for predictable books and opportunities for speech.

What do you think? Am I caving, or does this make sense? Where do you think the balance should be between what a speech therapist does in weekly sessions and what a mom should be doing at home?

So last week we found ourselves at the swimming pool. Noah (7 – with Down syndrome) loves the water, and it seems to really open the door to speech to have him in the water. This apraxia thing is a real booger. The more he concentrates, the harder he tries, the more his speech falls apart, it seems. So to have him engrossed in the water creates enough of a distraction that we often get good speech production.

In the water with Noah, I captured every speech opportunity I could, and I want to share some of that with you.

I have 3 Littles who are not swimming independently yet, so I lined them up on the side of the pool while the 3 Middles played in the water in the middle of the pool.

First I had the Littles kick with their feet in the water. I gave each of them a turn to say “kick” whereupon they would commence to kicking and then “stop” when they would all stop. A great thing about kids – they don’t demand perfect enunciation or pronunciation. Noah just had to attempt to say kick or stop, and the others performed on cue. Very powerful stuff for a little boy who is still deciding just how important speech is to him.

Then it was Noah’s turn to come into the pool. He practiced signing and saying “I want in water.” (I said most of those words along with him.)

Once we were in the water, he was happy to say “water” when I asked him what we were in. He also said “go” to get me to move. We worked on blowing bubbles in the water, which he loved so much, he was happy to practice saying “more bubbles.” For this, I asked him, “Do you want more bubbles?” He said “yes”, and I told him, “Then say more bubbles.” And on cue he said, “More bubbles.”

He gets mighty bold and likes to show off in the water, so I took advantage of this by having him call out to his siblings by name.

When he did something well, I cued him to say “Yay.”

Noah likes me to hold him close in the pool, so although I would push him to kick and paddle with a little distance between the two of us, when I was ready to pull him closer, I verbally prompted him to say, “Hold me.”

Then when it was time to get out and let another Little have a turn, I prompted Noah to say “out.”

When his turn came around again, Noah practiced phrases like “My turn” and “I want in.”

Best case scenario, Noah would be working with a speech therapist in the water. Next best thing – that would be me. 🙂

How about you? Are you finding good opportunities for speech sessions in unusual settings?

You know how exciting it is when you hear your new talker say a new word from the back seat as you drive on your merry way? That awesome moment when you ask yourself, “Did he really just say that?” and then, sure enough, he says it again. And that new word that to anyone else is just a word becomes to you the pivoting point that the world is resting on?

Well that happened today. Just driving down our old country road on the way to the recycling plant. I heard “bus” in Noah’s unmistakable gruff voice. No way. There was a school bus heading our way, but no way could Noah have seen it before he said “bus.” So then I glanced in the rearview mirror, and sure enough, we had already passed one bus.

I looked over at Leah and said, “Did he just say bus?”

Affirmative.

Well, I hooped and hollered and Noah growled and said and signed “Stop.” (He hates it when I get all excited about his speech.)

More busses. “Bus, bus,” I prompted. More growling. And then as the next two school busses passed, it was reported from the back seat that Noah was whispering “bus” (knowing Mama just couldn’t help but get excited if she heard it).

Next thing you know, all the kids, including Noah were playing a game of being the first person to say “bus” when another bus was spotted.

Talk (no pun intended) about being in the right place at the right time!

Raising a courageous hero with Down syndrome rocks!

(Once kids with speech issues start playing games like this, keep the game going by looking for school busses on all your drives and shout out “bus” each time you see one – perhaps the kiddo will join right in, and you’ve just captured a few more word productions for free.)

An extradorinary little boy, the ordinary people who love him, and their journey together through the world of visual learning and speech acquisition. (And in my "free time," vintage crochet, machine embroidery, digitizing and Etsy.)

Don't let the textbooks fool ya; little boys with Down syndrome are VERY clever!!!!

May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer. (Ps 19:14)